IBM has announced that it will be putting Watson, the special cognitive intelligence engine that won on the TV quiz show Jeopardy, in the cloud and allowing devs to access it via an API.

The company announced the move today, adding that it wants to enable an ecosystem of cognitive apps from startups to big companies alike. To achieve this, it’s launching the IBM Watson Developer’s Cloud, described as:

A cloud-hosted marketplace where application providers of all sizes and industries will be able to tap into resources for developing Watson-powered apps. This will include a developer toolkit, educational materials and access to Watson’s application programming interface (API).

Companies that do decide to partner with IBM to build Watson apps in the cloud will have the choice of using their own company’s data or from accessing data in the IBM Watson Content Store, which will offer third-party data-rich resources (like Healthline) “that can fuel Watson’s ever expanding knowledge”, IBM said. For now, IBM has partnered with three companies (Fluid Retail, MD Buyline and Welltok) to outline its vision, but there’s deals with others in the works.